A Media Gateway Controller (MGC) and a Media Gateway (MG) are two key network components in a Packet Switched (PS) network. The MGC is responsible for the call control function, and the MG is responsible for the service bearer function. In this way, the MGC and the MG can work together to separate the call control plane from the service bearer plane, thus fully sharing network resources and simplifying the equipment upgrade and the service extension. The main protocol for communication between the MG and the MGC is the media gateway control protocol. The widely used media gateway control protocols include the Gateway Control Protocol (H.248) and the Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP).
Based on the Gateway Control Protocol (H.284), various resources on the MG are represented by termination abstractly. The termination is categorized into physical termination and ephemeral termination. The physical termination represents physical entities that have characteristic of semi-permanent existence, for example, Time Division Multiplex (TDM) channels. The ephemeral termination represents the public resources that are applied for ephemeral purpose, for example, Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) streams. Besides the preceding common terminations, there is a special termination called Root termination which represents the whole MG. Moreover, the combination of terminations is represented by context. A context may include multiple terminations so the association between terminations may be described by using the topology of the terminations. The terminations that are not correlated with other terminations are contained in a special context called Null context.
Based on the abstract model of the preceding protocol, a call connection is actually an operation on the termination and the context. Such operation is performed through command requested and reply between the MGC and the MG. Commands include Add, Modify, Subtract, Move, AuditValue, AuditCapabilities, Notify, and ServiceChange. Command parameters, also called descriptors, are categorized into property, signal, event, and statistic. The parameters with service relevance are logically aggregated into a package.
An event refers to some possible conditions that a MG needs to monitor, for example, offhook, onhook, dialing, hookflash or network fault, quality alarm, and timer timeout. The occurrence of these conditions may trigger the MG to notify the event to the MGC and/or the MG to take certain actions. Generally, an event is sent by the MGC to the MG or is preset on the MG. The event is identified in a format of PackageID/EventID, and attached with a RequestedID and other necessary parameters. A sent event is also called a requested event. Once the MG detects the occurrence of the event, the MG reports the event to the MGC. The event is also identified in a format of PackageID/EventID, and attached with the RequestedID and other necessary parameters same as the preceding ones. A reported event is also called an observed event.
A event report may include a TimeStamp parameter. The timestamp parameter refers to the actual time when the MG detects the occurrence of the event. This parameter consists of a date and/or a time. In the prior art, the timestamp parameter is optional. The MG determines whether the timestamp parameter needs to be carried in the event report. Therefore, if the application needs to know the actual time when the MG detects the occurrence of the event for the purposes of analysis, summarizing, prediction, and decision, the MG is required to report the event including the timestamp. In particular, if the application needs background processing, the time information provided by the timestamp may be stored for reference in the subsequent processing. However, because the timestamp parameter is optional, the MG may not report the timestamp parameter even if some applications require this parameter. In reverse, as the MG determines whether the timestamp parameter needs to be carried by the event report to the MGC, the timestamp parameter carried by the event report may be useless for the MGC and other applications. Therefore, the timestamp is redundant and unnecessary, thus wasting the bandwidth resources and other resources of the system. Thus, there is an urgent need for a method for controlling the reporting of an event timestamp so that the reporting of timestamp can be controlled according to the requirement of an event for the timestamp in the case of event report.